


take me out and take me home

by lovealwayskatie



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, song ficish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24265516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovealwayskatie/pseuds/lovealwayskatie
Summary: They end the day, cross-legged on the floor, toasting to their new home and their new life with slices of pizza. / a year in the life of Ricky and Nini’s first year in New York
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 30
Kudos: 128





	take me out and take me home

**Author's Note:**

> i really think i lost my mind, writing this in one sitting, and i still haven't figured out what happened. there's simply no plot to be found, just some gentle domestic rini meandering through new york.
> 
> title, a few lyrics within and the entire inspiration for this thing is from “lover” by my lord and savior, taylor swift. the other song mentioned is "you get what you give" by new radicals.
> 
> i've lived in new york for almost a year but it's a big place, so pls don't roast me too hard over any city living inaccuracies!

**SUMMER**

_Can I go where you go?_

  
  
They graduate from college on the second Saturday in May, and less than a week later, they move to New York City.

  
  
They get a tiny one bedroom in the Lower East Side with permanently scuffed hardwood floors and a bathroom so small that it requires them to dance around one another in order to brush their teeth together over the sink. It’s a third-floor walkup, so moving in at the brink of summer feels like she’s entered a new realm of Dante’s Inferno, sweat rolling down her back and her hair wisping in the humidity.

  
  
But they have air conditioning in their unit and a laundromat on their block and a wall of exposed brick in their bedroom that Nini loves, so it’s not all bad.

  
  
After all their boxed belongings have been hauled inside, they paint a wall in the living room bright blue. Ricky paints a streak across her cheek, so she runs her roller through his hair, wriggling out of his grasp when he tries to retaliate.

  
  
They end the day, cross-legged on the floor, because they don’t have a couch yet, toasting to their new home and their new life with slices of pizza.  
  


\---

  
Her life settles into a routine quickly. They get a couch, and she puts up framed pictures of their family and friends and them together everywhere, and inch by inch, their apartment starts to feel like home.

  
  
She loves their neighborhood and quickly solidifies that her favorite coffee shop is the one on the corner with their own bottled cold brew and the best cheese danishes she’s ever had in her life.

  
  
She has a job as a program coordinator at the Lincoln Center, which is long hours and kind of exhausting, but she likes it, likes being a part of the city’s vibrant performing arts community, so she tries not to complain. Besides, it’s New York, so long hours are basically a part of everyone’s job description.

  
  
In the fall, Ricky is slated to start as a music teacher at a performing arts school, which hosts a day camp for teenagers over the summer that he’s helping with in the interim. The school is close to her office on the Upper West Side, allowing them to commute together in the morning, sharing a set of AirPods on the train. He loves his job, adores his students, but she knows his days suck a lot of his energy, so their nights together are often spent exhausted.

  
  
They eat spaghetti or reheated Chinese takeout on their couch, trying to keep up with the contestants on Jeopardy, until he moves closer, putting his head in her lap, his unspoken request for her to play with his hair. She always does, running her fingers through his curls, and he tells her about the campers and their latest shenanigans from the day.

  
  
“Abigail’s the worst,” he says, and his eyes drift shut as she lightly massages his scalp.

  
  
“She’s thirteen,” she laughs.

  
  
He opens his eyes wide enough to squint up at her. “Yeah, and thirteen-year-old girls can be the worst. Haven’t you ever seen The Crucible?”

  
  
She laughs again—the only reason he _has_ seen the Arthur Miller play is because she dragged him to a production while they were in school.

  
  
On the weekends, she usually ends up waking earlier than Ricky and will read or go on a run, coming home with bacon, egg, and cheese bagels from the closest bodega to revive a barely awake Ricky.

  
  
“My hero,” he tells her every time as if she hung the moon, not brought him a breakfast that she didn’t even make.

  
  
One Saturday afternoon, when it’s a fraction less miserably hot and sticky outside, they go to Central Park, eating sandwiches and strawberries on the grass. When they pass Loeb Boathouse, he pleads with her to rent one of the row boats.

  
  
“I don’t think people actually rent those things,” she says. “It’s just something that you see in the movies.”

  
  
“Yeah, and you _love_ the movies.”

  
  
She snorts. “Yes, all the movies in the world, I love ‘em.”

  
  
He takes her hand and tugs, like he’s a child begging with his parent to buy cookies in the grocery store. Actually, when she considers it, her twenty-two year old boyfriend isn’t too dissimilar from said child. “You need more whimsy in your life,” he tells her.

  
  
“I’m dating you. I’m already at maximum levels of whimsy, like, all the time.”

  
  
Twenty minutes later, she’s sitting at the back of a row boat, sweating in a bright orange life jacket, as Ricky paddles happily from his place in the front. They skim across the lake and under Bow Bridge, and it does kind of feel like a movie. And when they pass a mother duck and her trailing ducklings, Nini can’t help herself from letting out an aww, and Ricky smiles at her triumphantly.

  
  
The biggest shift in her day-to-day is actually the sheer fact of the matter that she lives with a _boy_ now, and after living with Ashlyn and Gina for the majority of college and their floral-scented candles, Sunday mornings of yoga in the living room and Spice Girls blasting as they huddled in their bathroom getting ready for a night out, well, it’s a little weird, living with a boy.

  
  
He sleeps on his stomach, crowding her and making the hot summer nights nearly unbearable, and wakes up with imprints on his cheek from his pillow case. It takes him two months and Nini almost falling in one bleary-eyed morning to remember to put the toilet seat down after using it, and he never makes the bed. He can cook approximately three dishes, so they wind up eating scrambled eggs for dinner a lot.

  
  
But he always offers to take the trash out, her least favorite chore, and rescues her from a cockroach that scuttles across the kitchen floor one morning—“But don’t _kill him_ ,” she instructs from where she’s huddled on the counter, knees to chest, and he scoops up the bug with a cup and piece of paper, releasing it into the wild via their fire escape—and he makes his scrambled eggs with butter and a lot of pepper, which really does make them taste better.

  
  
Yeah, it’s a little weird living with a boy, but at least she knows she picked the best boy.  
  


\---

  
They spend Fourth of July on their rooftop with their friends, eating hot dogs and drinking from sweating beer bottles. Gina brings an American flag made out of Jell-O, and Carlos insists on playing through the entirety of the Hamilton album because as he tells them, it’s literally a soundtrack of American history. Ricky rolls his eyes, acts like he’s put out by being forced to listen to the OBC recording for the millionth time, but she catches him mouthing along to the titular song.

  
  
Later, when the sun has set and the Empire State Building is lit up red, white, and blue, she takes her spot beside him. The Macy’s fireworks display begins, bursts of color erupting over the city scape, and she rests her head on his shoulder to watch the show.  
  


\---

  
It starts with a succulent, a thick, waxy-leafed aloe plant that she tucks in the windowsill in their bedroom.

  
  
She’s always liked to collect things: records, pictures, tickets to movies, musicals and even museums, and these things surround them in their apartment. It gives it character, makes it feel more like home, because now, they’re surrounded by dozens of tiny things that they got to experience and love.

  
  
So, really, she doesn’t think Ricky should be surprised when she comes home with a lilac orchid and two more succulents, including a small, prickly cactus, that he immediately reaches out to touch.

  
  
He yelps in pain, and she rolls her eyes. “Why would you touch it? You can _see_ the thorns. It’s not like a secret defense mechanism.”

  
  
“Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want that in my home—not when it hurt me.”

  
  
He says it like an accusation, and she bites her tongue from telling him that this seems like a user error problem, not the plant. Instead she looks at him with wide eyes. “You seriously want to orphan a poor, innocent cactus?”

  
  
He scrunches up his nose, crosses his arms over his chest and ultimately, relents. “Fine. But no more!”

  
  
The next week, she stops by the nursery two blocks over, just to look, and an hour later, comes home with a baby fiddle-leaf fig tree.  
  


\---

  
The last and worst heat wave of summer is the second weekend of August, sticky heat suffocating New York City and all who inhabit it. Even with A/C, it’s pretty unbearable, and she’s scared to turn the temperature down much further on the thermostat, nervous that the unit will break if they do.

  
  
They end up spending the day sitting on the kitchen floor, because the tile is the coolest to the touch, and suck on ice cubes from a plastic tray.

  
  
“This is terrible,” Ricky moans, leaning his head back against their refrigerator. He crunches loudly on a piece of ice. “Remind me why we moved here just in time for summer?”

  
  
She shrugs helplessly, unable to recall why she—or anyone else for that matter—would ever want to live in a city this miserable.

  
  
“It’s too hot to do anything.”

  
  
She turns to look at Ricky, resting her cheek on the fridge, and he’s looking at her too, his hair curling like a crazy halo around his head from the thick humidity. She loves his hair so much, all the time but especially right now, so she reaches over to run her fingers through it, pushing the curls off his damp forehead. She thinks that she wants their kids to have curly hair like his, and as the thought runs through her mind, panic shoots through her, her eyes widening. No, no, no—she is twenty-two years old; she, he, them, they _are_ kids, not having them. No way, not right now.

  
  
He doesn’t seem to notice the brief anxiety attack that she gives herself, letting out a quiet, delighted hum at her touch, and she exhales deeply through her nose as well.

  
  
He scoots closer, about to kiss her, and before he can, she says, “I thought it was too hot to do anything.”

  
  
His lips are practically on hers when he says, “Maybe there’s one thing.”

  
  
When he kisses her, his mouth is cold and wet from eating ice cubes, and she threads her fingers through his hair again and tugs gently, eliciting a noise from him in the back of his throat. He kisses her harder in response, opening his mouth under hers, and it steals her breath a little. His kisses grow a little sloppier, a little more frenzied, and she didn’t think it could be possible to feel any hotter than she has all day, but here she is.

  
  
When he leans backwards, his back pressed into the kitchen tile, he takes her with him without breaking their kiss, and she settles on top of him, her legs straddling his, and they end up managing to do one thing that day.

  
  
All in all, it’s a good first summer in the city.

  
\---

  
**FALL**   
_  
Can we always be this close?_

  
  
September arrives, and with it, crisper mornings, shorter days and all the thick sweaters that Nini had shoved in plastic bins under their bed.

  
  
Fall has always been her favorite season and fall in New York might be her favorite kind of fall yet. She pads around their apartment in fuzzy socks to keep her feet warm and switches from iced to hot coffee, stocking pumpkin creamer in the fridge, which Ricky says tastes like a candle, but she catches him using it in the morning when he thinks she’s not looking.

  
  
School is officially in session, and Ricky has to wear button-ups and ties to work now. She likes that a new part of her routine includes tying his tie for him each morning and that he comes home with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She knows that teenaged Nini would have died if her music teacher looked like Ricky, and when she confesses that his being a teacher is kind of hot, he laughs in her face.

  
  
Before bed that night, he asks her, “So, would me keeping the tie on do it for you or—”

  
  
She swats his arm and pushes him into their bathroom to change.

  
  
In honor of fall festiveness, they spend one Saturday upstate at an apple orchard. The air is crisp, and the leaves have all turned red and golden when they weren’t looking in the concrete jungle, crunching underfoot as they walk through the farm, hand in hand.

  
  
She takes a dozen photos of their surroundings on her phone, and Ricky asks a stranger to take one of them together, holding the wicker basket of picked apples between them.

  
  
They drink homemade apple cider and split a freshly baked apple cider donut, and Ricky winds up with sugar all over his face. When he kisses her, insisting on doing so behind a tree because Nini, there are children around, it tastes like cinnamon and sugar and the best day ever.

  
  
He posts one of the pictures of them together later on Instagram with the caption, _the apple of my eye_ , which is stupid but makes her smile nonetheless.

  
\---

  
They host game nights in their apartment, their group selecting the designated activity in rotation, and they order pizza, and everyone brings snacks and wine to contribute.

  
  
Ricky is super intense when it comes to Pictionary even though his drawings look like a fourth grader’s, and Carlos bans Ricky and Nini from being on the same team, declaring that, due to their freaky ability to read one another’s minds, it’s unfair to everyone else.

  
  
Sometimes, it feels like she is back with her friends from high school, and her moms are going to tell them to quiet down, that they’re getting too rowdy, or someone’s going to get a call from their parents, reminding them of their impending curfew. Except that she’s not in high school, and it’s her home with Ricky, so they get to make the rules.

  
  
Why does no one ever talk about that being the best part of growing up? Being an adult sucks in so many tedious and overwhelming ways, but the last few months have proven to have its own silver linings.

  
  
When it’s her turn to pick their game, Ashlyn picks Settlers of Catan, but after she cuts everyone else off from getting wood, she’s declared the winner, and they turn on one of the old Halloweentown movies.

  
  
From her spot on the floor, she curls into Ricky and wordlessly offers a pumpkin-shaped Reese’s to him. He breaks it in half and gives one piece to her. Marnie has just met the goblin, Luke, when Nini falls asleep on his shoulder, and she doesn’t wake up until Kourtney nudges her gently to say goodbye, the credits of the movie rolling behind her. Half-asleep still, she hugs her friends goodbye except for Seb and Gina who are both curled up on the couch asleep, sharing a blanket that her lola knit for her.

  
  
Ricky extends a hand to help her stand and asks, “Should we wake them up?”

In her sleep, Gina smacks her lips softly, and Nini shakes her head. “They can crash here, no big.”

  
  
Ricky nods then bends his knees, holding out his hands, and she smiles, wrapping herself around him and letting him give her a piggyback ride to bed.

  
\---

  
She has a bad day at work in which all she wants to do is go home and sulk, pulling the covers over her head and not moving until morning when she absolutely has to be a functioning member of society.

  
  
Unfortunately for her, Ricky seems to have missed the sulking memo and yanks their comforter off of her.

  
  
“Rick- _y_ ,” she groans, her voice breaking over the second syllable in his name. She rolls over, shoving her face in her pillow, and tries to pull the blanket back over her.

  
  
“Please, Nini,” he pleads. “I have something that might make you feel better.”

  
  
She squeezes her eyes tighter for a moment longer and then pushes the covers off of her completely, allowing him to lead her into the kitchen. She looks around, trying to spot the difference, but there is none. In case Ricky’s unsure, she points out the obvious. “This is our kitchen.”

  
  
“Wait, yes, I know—wait,” he says, fumbling with his phone until music starts to play from the speakers that they have set up next to their microwave. The beat starts, and Ricky grins nervously at her when he begins to step touch in place.

  
  
She thinks Ricky might have lost his mind, officially this time, but it’s only half a second longer before she recognizes the song, before the lead singer’s voice has even come in. He’s still moving to the music, adding in a snap on the down beat. Still confused, she says, “I love this song.”

  
  
“I know you do,” he replies, and he grapevines to the left then does a three-step turn back the other way, narrowly avoiding running face first into their fridge.

  
  
The singer begins to count in to the first verse, and she asks, “What are you doing?”

  
  
“Creating a musical moment,” he tells her, and then before she can say anything else, he begins to sing along, rushing over to grab her hands. “Wake up, kids, we got the dreamer’s disease.”

  
  
He spins her out, catching her off guard with the motion and almost knocking the air out of her when he spins her back into his chest a little too forcibly. As he sings along, swinging her around their kitchen, her confusion fades, and she can’t help herself when she starts to laugh.

  
  
“It doesn’t count if you don’t sing along,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the music.

  
  
She comes in on the chorus, jumping in place, presumably making their downstairs neighbors hate them, and punching blindly into the air.

  
  
_You've got the music in you_   
_  
Don't let go, you've got the music in you_   
_  
One dance left, this world is gonna pull through_   
_  
Don't give up, you've got a reason to live_   
_  
Can't forget, we only get what we give_

  
  
He takes her hands in his again, and they skip in circles around their kitchen, screaming along to the bridge.

  
  
_Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson_   
  
_Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson_   
  
_You're all fakes, run to your mansions_   
  
_Come around, we'll kick your asses!_

  
  
By the time the song comes to an end, she’s out of breath, partly from dancing and partly from laughing, and she’s ready to pass out on their couch. When she tries to, she can’t even remember what made her day so bad in the first place.

  
\---

  
They spend a rainy day at the American Museum of Natural History, wandering the exhibits as the rain comes down in sheets outside. She likes the planetarium best since it’s basically the only place you can see stars in the city, even if they’re not exactly like the ones at home, but Ricky’s favorite is the dinosaur exhibit. They spend an extra hour looking at the fossils and the massive Tyrannosaurus rex that takes up much of the hall, and he needles her into reading the displays to him.

  
  
She’s reciting off the vertebrae origins of an Apatosaurus when he asks, “Do you think we met before?” She tilts her head, and he clarifies, “Like met in other universes throughout history?”

  
  
She opens her mouth, but she’s not really sure how to respond.

  
  
Ricky has his head tilted back to look up at one of the displays of a birdlike creature, suspended above them like it’s flying, when he continues, “I feel like we must have, right? And our souls keep coming back to one another over and over, and this is how we get together in this universe.” He looks at her then and smiles, saccharine sweet. “I like to think we always find each other.”

  
  
She’s been with Ricky for three years and known him four, almost exactly, having met their second day of their freshmen year of college. Sometimes, it feels like she’s known him her whole life, the way in which they know one another inside and out, and sometimes—just like he’s suggesting—it feels like she’s known him even longer, as though tethered by something stronger than choosing one another day in, day out. But other times, he still manages to surprise her in a good way, like he’s someone that she met only twenty seconds ago.

  
  
Reaching out to take his hand, she nods. “I think we find one another in every timeline too.”

  
\---

  
Ricky and Nini host a Friendsgiving in their apartment the Tuesday before everyone heads home for the holiday. Tomorrow, they’ll be taking the train to Washington D.C. to his dad’s house for the day—Ricky’s family got Thanksgiving while her family got Christmas this year—but they don’t want to leave the city without getting together as a group one more time.

  
  
Nini makes a pumpkin pie, and they fumble over making a turkey in their oven without setting the fire alarm off, but when it’s done, it doesn’t look half bad. Plus, Ricky finds butter in the shape of a turkey, and she kind of loves it, setting it out on a chipped butter dish from his mom.

  
  
Since there aren’t enough chairs for everyone to fit around their kitchen table, she sets out pillows around their coffee table for everyone to sit on, and that evening, it’s a flurry of activity and an overwhelming, nostalgic smell of Thanksgiving food as their friends arrive with their dishes: Ashlyn with green beans, Gina with her mom’s recipe for marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole, and Carlos, ever the chef, shows up juggling three bottles of red wine.

  
  
The resident Thanksgiving enthusiast, E.J. is nominated to cut the turkey, and Nini beams at the final product, reassured for the inevitable day that she and Ricky will be put in charge of hosting their families for the actual holiday. Everyone serves themselves in the kitchen before piling into the living room, a Thanksgiving episode of Friends playing in the background.

  
  
Before they all dive in, she suggests that everyone goes around and says what they’re thankful for this year, offering to go first. “I’m thankful for my job,” she begins. “And my health and my family.” Beside her, Ricky makes a small, annoying noise, like a puppy’s whine, and she turns to see him staring at her with wide, innocent eyes.

  
  
“Don’t say it,” Kourtney blurts out, but she ignores her friend and kisses her boyfriend on the cheek to appease him.

  
  
“—and of course, I’m thankful for Ricky—"

  
  
Kourtney shakes her head at her, but Nini catches her smile.

  
  
She turns back to the individuals gathered around her living room and finishes, “And all of you guys. Seriously, you’ve helped make the first months in New York really feel like home, and I’m so excited for what’s to come—Big Red, are you _crying_?”

  
  
Big Red, a hand over his face, waves off her comment, gesturing for her to continue, sniffling, “I’m sorry, I just really love the holidays.”

  
\---

  
**WINTER**   
  
_Forever and ever_

  
  
With the arrival of winter, their apartment shows off its age for the first time, the hardwood floors completely incapable of trapping any heat, and cold, biting air comes into their home in drafts. She cycles through all of his hoodies, and he starts wearing beanies inside, pulled low over his ears.

  
  
One night, she’s curled in a tight ball, wrapped up in two blankets, and she’s almost fallen asleep when she hears Ricky yelp, her foot having brushed up against his calf.

  
  
“Nini, _don’t_ touch me.”

  
  
“I’m wearing socks!”

  
  
“Well, the socks aren’t helping, and you’re stealing all my body heat.”

  
  
“You weren’t complaining yesterday when it was my body heat up for grabs!”

  
  
He flips on the lamp beside him, light flooding their room, and she has to swallow a laugh when she sees that he’s still wearing one of his beanies. “Come on,” he instructs her, tucking his pillow under his arm. “Bring your pillow and all the blankets.”

  
  
She scrambles out of bed, wanting to ask what on Earth he’s doing, but he’s already out the room, so she follows dutifully behind. He takes her into the living room, and on the way, he’s collected all the blankets and pillows in their apartment.

  
  
“What are you doing?” she finally asks.

  
  
He sounds entirely too serious when he says, “We’re making a pillow fort.”

  
  
They build pillow walls and blanket ceilings, using his guitar to hold up one side and one corner of their coffee table to provide additional structure, until they finally crawl in, the dimmed light of the sole lamp they left on being the only thing half-illuminating his face in the dark.

  
  
“We should live in here forever,” she says. It’s cozier than she’s anticipated, and it feels like she’ll finally have a chance to defrost.

  
  
Ricky seems to consider this carefully. “It would make us our own landlord.”

  
  
He opens his laptop and starts an episode of Brooklyn 99, and somewhere between his fort construction and the theme song, he evidently gets over his aversion to sharing his body heat and pulls her close to kiss her. Their kisses are long and slow, and her heart thuds loudly in her ears when his hands sneak under the sweatshirt that she’s wearing, goosebumps erupting on her skin from his cold fingers.

  
  
“Really, you want to do this in a pillow fort?” she asks when he leaves open-mouthed kisses at the crook of her neck, nuzzling his nose into her skin.

  
  
He stops to give her a pointed look. “Don’t ruin this for me.”

  
  
And when he kisses her again, she laughs against his lips.

  
\---

  
Even though they’ll be in Salt Lake City with her family for Christmas, they both agree that they need to decorate their apartment for the holidays. It doesn’t feel like Christmas without any lights or a tree, and Christmas is her favorite.

  
  
They pick out a real-life tree—a small one, they concede—from the lot down the street and get a wreath for their door and string up lights throughout their apartment, and they play Christmas music as they decorate.

  
  
Since they only have twenty days of the holiday season in New York City, the most magical time to actually live in New York City, she drags him around town to complete her festive bucket list.

  
  
Alongside droves of tourists that have descended upon Manhattan, they watch the lights on the tree at Rockefeller Center turn on, and for reasons she can’t explain, the sight is so grand, so magical that it makes her tear up a little. Afterwards, they go ice skating, and he spins in circles around her, dragging her off the side railing and keeping both hands in hers as he pulls her along. She makes him visit the Fifth Avenue window displays, too, in which the pictures she takes on her phone don’t do them justice.

  
  
At home, they make hot chocolate on the stove and homemade whipped cream to go on top, and he eats candy canes until she thinks his teeth might rot out.

  
  
They watch all the classics: the animated and live action _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ , _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , and _Elf_ twice.

  
  
She’s not sure if you can decide on if something should be a tradition after only the first year, but she wouldn’t mind if all of her Christmases were just like this one.

  
  
“How long should we keep the lights up?” he asks as they sit on their living room floor, wrapping their presents for their parents. While they’ll fly home with the gifts for her moms for them to open on Christmas day, they need to drop off the gifts to be shipped to Virginia and Chicago for his dad and mom respectively at FedEx by tomorrow. Her gifts for him—a new tie for work, a remastered Elvis Costello record, and tickets to the Knicks game when the Utah Jazz are in town—are already wrapped and hiding between her sweaters in their dresser.

  
  
She shrugs. “My moms were strictly January second people, but we can keep them up later.” She looks around the soft yellow glow that the twinkling lights bathe the living room in. “I kind of like them.”

  
  
He nods. “Me too.”

  
  
January has come and gone before they get around to actually taking down the lights.

  
\---

  
They stay in with their friends for New Year’s Eve that year, watching the crowd that’s gathered only blocks from their home to watching the ball drop on TV and drinking champagne out of plastic cups.

  
  
Kourtney teases her that, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, Nini’s the biggest homebody she knows and she’s one half of an old married couple already—a double whammy. She wonders sometimes if she’s doing her young adulthood wrong, but she looks at Ricky and at her home and at her life, and she can’t even pretend like she would pick any other option even if given one.

  
  
When the countdown to midnight starts, Nini sways happily on her feet, considering whether or not the champagne bubbles seeped into her brain, and she places her hands on Ricky’s shoulders to steady herself. The seconds tick down, and he says the final one of the countdown into her mouth, kissing her like all the times before except this time in a whole new year, as everyone cheers around them.

  
\---

  
Ricky’s birthday falls on the last Tuesday of January, and she wakes up early to make breakfast, arranging a chocolate chip smile in the pancakes.

  
  
Minutes before his alarm is set to go off anyway, she crawls back into bed and kisses him softly to try and wake him up. He doesn’t stir for a moment, and she moves to pull away when he finds her hand and tugs her back on top of him to keep kissing. He hums against her lips as he does so, sliding his hands up the back of her thighs, and she fists at his T-shirt. When he pulls back, he asks with big, owlish eyes, “Are you my birthday present?”

  
  
She rolls her eyes and climbs off of him for real this time. “Go brush your teeth and come eat breakfast.”

  
  
After work, she tells him that she needs one more ingredient to make dinner that night and walks him in circles around the grocery store, only to finally settle on buying a canister of salt, and she’s fairly certain that Ricky’s about to kill her. When they walk into their apartment, however, all their friends jump out from behind their couch, yelling surprise, and Ricky practically shrieks, falling back into Nini.

  
  
“Jordan year, baby,” E.J. whoops and shoves a drink into Ricky’s hand.

  
  
Instead of a cake, they have a Thin Mint pie, a recipe that Gina found on YouTube, because Ricky likes pie better than cake anyway.

  
  
Close to midnight, after he’s opened his gifts from his friends, including a new pair of Vans he’d been eyeing from Nini, and all that’s left of the pie is crust crumbs, their friends file out and head home.

  
  
“I lied earlier,” she confesses, closing the door to their bedroom but not stepping away from the doorknob yet. From where he’s seated at the edge of their bed, he raises his eyebrows warily at her. She holds out her arms by her sides and shrugs. “I’m part of your birthday present, too.”

  
  
He laughs, and she steps towards him, standing in between his legs in order to kiss him softly, teasingly.

  
  
He leans back to say, “You’re a really good gift giver.”

  
  
This time, she’s the one to laugh before she pushes him back onto the bed.

  
\---

  
**SPRING**   
  
_Take me out, and take me home_

  
  
Winter lasts impossibly long in the north but finally, eventually, melts into spring, and it feels like the city opens up again, people feeling braver to leave the warmth and safety of their apartments, shedding their puffer coats and wool scarves.

  
  
Fall is her favorite season, but she likes that spring is about renewal and new beginnings. They get out more now as well to take advantage of the warmer weather, spending sunny Saturdays walking in circles around the East Village, exploring nearby record stores that they didn’t get a chance to visit last summer and eating melting ice cream out of waffle cones as their steps fall in time with one another on the pavement.

  
  
She tries to buy flowers when she can, setting them out on a vase on their kitchen table, since it feels more like spring this way, and one day, she comes home to find a fresh bouquet of sunflowers already out.

  
  
They visit Battery Park, stopping at the pier where you can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, and they spend a day in Brooklyn, flipping through pages at an independent bookstore, and trying different foods from the endless rows of food trucks at Smorgasburg. They have a picnic in Central Park with their friends, spread out on a blanket, tossing grapes at one another and soaking in the sun.

  
  
“This is my favorite time of year,” Ricky declares, laying on his back, head in Nini’s lap and his legs stretched out into the bright green grass. He plucks a blade of grass and twirls it in between his fingertips, tying it into a knot. Then he looks back up at Nini and gives her a bright, boyish grin, and she doesn’t even think about smiling back; it just happens, appearing on her face.

  
  
She decides then that, while fall is her favorite season, maybe spring can be her favorite season with Ricky.

  
\---

  
For Nini’s birthday, he gets them tickets to the Shakespeare in the Park production of “As You Like It,” and she watches him during some of the scenes, his brow furrowed as he actively works hard to follow along with the vernacular. When he genuinely laughs at the jokes, it makes her laugh harder at them.

  
  
On their way home, they split a black and white cookie, and he swears a thousand times over that he didn’t hate the show.

  
\---

  
One drizzly night, they make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner, stepping over one another as they both try to work at their stove top, and a slow, waltzy song floats from her phone.

  
  
She cuts their sandwiches in half, and he says, “I love the reverb of this song.” He taps his fingertips along the edge of the counter to the tempo and sings along to the chorus while he stirs the pot.

  
  
“I love this song,” she echoes. It sounds like a first dance at a wedding, a retro waltz for the twenty-first century, complete with pizzicato strings over the bridge. She thinks briefly that she would dance to it at her wedding, their wedding, and when the thought enters her head, she suddenly can’t bare to look at him, very interested in the crust of their grilled cheeses instead as her cheeks heat up.

  
  
She loves Ricky. He knows that, and she knows that he loves her. They’ve said it to one another for more than two years now, and while they’re not the kind of couple who say it every day since she knows that it’s not exactly always the easiest thing for Ricky to say, it’s etched into their lives, woven among every other word that they do say to one another. By now, every part of her life is intertwined with his, and she hopes that he knows that, for her, he’s it.

  
  
Ready to eat, he holds out a bowl of tomato soup to her, and instead of taking it, she blurts out, “When you think of the future—”

  
  
He pauses and blinks in surprise, placing the bowl of hot liquid back on the counter, and the rest of her question momentarily dies on her lips.

  
  
Got it, cool, okay, Nini. Try that again.

  
  
She swallows and asks, “When you think of the future, what do you picture it looking like?”

  
  
He blinks again, and the beat of silence feels like it takes a year off of her life. “Uh, pretty much like this?” He tilts his head in the unspoken question of where this is coming from.

  
  
He looks around their kitchen from their fridge covered in sticky note messages from their friends and a postcard from her moms’ Caribbean cruise to the coffee-stained Boston University mug sitting in the sink. “You’re there, I’m there, and I don’t know, a dog at some point, kids at a later point—I know we’ve never really talked about kids, but um.” When he shrugs, he has his hands out, palms up to the ceiling. “You know I like kids.”

  
  
She nods, slowly and then once more with confidence, a definitive nod. “Okay,” she says. He actually has some of the specifics worked out more than her, but like, obviously, she wants kids. She wants Ricky’s kids, more than one probably, since being an only child could get really lonely growing up. Her mind swirls before she can help it, but she figures that she can work out all the details later. “Cool.”

  
  
She moves past him, placing their plates on the kitchen table, and she can feel his eyes following her. When she turns back to grab the bowls of soup, she throws her arms around Ricky’s neck instead, burying her face in his chest.

  
  
He lets out a small noise of surprise, caught off guard by her embrace, before looping his arms around her waist and hugging her back.

  
\---

  
With the school year nearing its close and the promise of summer hanging over the city once more, Ricky’s school puts on an end of year showcase, and Nini comes straight from work to watch. In the auditorium, she takes an empty seat at the end of the row, next to who she presumes is someone’s mom, and flips through the program.

  
  
“Who are you here to see?” The woman next to her asks, and Nini figures, or at least hopes, that this woman thinks she’s someone’s sister, not mother.

  
  
“Ri—um, Mr. Bowen,” she corrects. She points to where he’s seated in the front row alongside other faculty members, and he’s wearing the forest green tie that she got him for Christmas.

  
  
The woman makes a noise of recognition. “Ah, yes, I’ve heard all about him. His students adore him.”

  
  
“Same here” slips out before she can stop herself, and she forces out an awkward laugh, before taking out her phone, busying herself by texting Ricky that she made it to the show.

  
  
When the curtain lifts, the show begins, and she’s not surprised by how talented the kids are. She knows it’s a super elite school, and even more so, has heard Ricky speak to their talent like he’s their own parent, gushing over Casey’s vibrato and Ty’s natural ear for music. She recognizes several other student names in the program from his stories, and the closing number is an acoustic, slowed down and deeply sentimental rendition of “American Pie” that has Ricky’s fingerprints all over it.

  
  
He finds her in the lobby after the show, re-introducing her to a few of his coworkers that she recalls meeting at his holiday party, and his students bound up to them too, excited to talk to Mr. Bowen. They’re all really sweet and bubbling over from their performance high, and she doesn’t miss how they all catch Ricky’s hand at the small of her back.

  
  
“That’s totally his girlfriend,” she hears one girl, a soloist in “American Pie,” whisper to her friend. “She’s so lucky.” Nini has to bite back a laugh, because it’s not like she disagrees with the girl.

  
  
When the lobby starts to clear out and Ricky’s retrieved his work bag from the green room, he comes back to her, and she outstretches a hand to him and asks, “Take me home?”

  
  
He nods, happy, and takes her hand in his, intertwining their fingers and leading them home.


End file.
